10 
BIBDS IN A VILLAGE. 
legion, and that every day, and even several 
times on each day, they may be threatened with 
destruction, they are absolutely free from appre- 
hension except when in the immediate presence 
of danger. Suspicious they may be at times, and 
the suspicion may cause them to remove them- 
selves to a greater distance from the object that 
excites it ; but the emotion is so slight, the action 
so almost automatic, that the singing bird will 
fly to another bush a dozen yards away, and at 
once resume his interrupted song. Again, a bird 
will see the deadliest enemy of its kind, and 
unless it be so close as to actually threaten his 
life, he will regard it with the greatest indiffer- 
ence, or will only be moved to anger at its 
presence. Here was this nightingale singing in 
the rain, seeing but not heeding me ; while beneath 
the hedge, almost directly under the twig it sat 
on, a black cat was watching it with luminous, 
yellow orbs. I did not see the cat at first, but think 
it very probable that the nightingale had remarked 
it with its bright, all-seeing little eyes. High up 
on the tops of the thorn a couple of sparrows were 
silently perched. Perhaps, like myself, they had 
come there to listen. After I had been standing 
motionless, drinking in that dulcet music for at 
least five minutes, one of the two sparrows dropped 
from the perch straight down, and alighting on 
